“We’re not ready for war this time either, massaraksh,” Zef remarked, switching off the radio and opening the debate.
The others didn’t agree with him. In the opinion of the majority, the immense force that was now lumbering on its way spelled the end for the Hontians. The criminal convicts thought the most important thing was to get across the border, and then every man would be his own master and every occupied city would be handed over to them for three days. The political convicts—that is, the degenerates—took a gloomier view of the situation and didn’t expect the future to bring anything good; they openly declared that they were all being sent to the slaughter, to set off the atomic mines, that none of them would be left alive, so it would be a good idea to get as far as the border and go to ground there, somewhere where they wouldn’t be found. The contesting viewpoints were so diametrically opposed that a genuine discussion failed to develop, and the patriotic debate very rapidly degenerated into monotonous abuse and revilement of the lousy, stinking creeps in the rear, who hadn’t given the men any chow yesterday or today and had probably already stolen all the vodka that was due to the men. The military convicts were prepared to carry on talking about this subject right through the night, so Maxim and Zef elbowed their way out of the crowd and clambered up onto the crooked bunks that had been crudely cobbled together out of unplaned planks.
Zef was hungry and angry. He settled down to fall asleep, but Maxim didn’t let him. “You’ll sleep later,” he sternly admonished him. “Tomorrow, maybe, we’ll be at the front, and we haven’t properly agreed about anything yet…” Zef grumbled that there was nothing to agree about, that they could sleep on it, that Maxim wasn’t blind and he must be able to see for himself what deep shit they were in, that there was no way you could get any decent kind of operation together with this petty trash, with these thieves and bookkeepers. Maxim objected that they weren’t talking about any kind of operation yet. It still wasn’t clear what this war was needed for, and who needed it, and would Zef please be polite enough not to sleep when he was being spoken to, and to share his own considerations on the subject. Zef, however, had no intention of being polite, and he didn’t conceal the fact. Why the hell, massaraksh, should he be polite, when he was so hungry and he was dealing with a snot-nosed kid who was incapable of drawing elementary conclusions and still insisted on trying to interfere in the revolution… He snarled, yawned, scratched, rewound his footcloths, and swore at Maxim, but after being goaded, exhorted, and lashed, he finally started talking and expounded his ideas concerning the causes of the war.
In his opinion, there were at least three possible causes of the war. Maybe they were all operating together, or maybe one of them was predominant. Or maybe there was a fourth cause that had not yet occurred to Zef. First of all, the economy. Information about the economic situation in the Land of the Fathers was kept strictly secret, but everybody knew that the situation was shitty, massaraksh and massaraksh, and when the economy is in a shitty condition, the best thing to do is to start a war with someone in order to immediately stop everybody’s mouths. Wild Boar, who was an old hand and quite a specialist on the influence of economics on politics, had already forecast this war five years ago. Towers were all very well, but poverty was still poverty. You couldn’t carry on for very long instilling into a hungry man’s mind the idea that he’s full—his mind couldn’t take the strain, and there wasn’t much fun in ruling a nation of madmen, especially since the insane were not susceptible to the radiation…
Another possible cause was ideological. State ideology in the Land of the Fathers was based on the idea of an external threat. At first this had simply been a lie, invented in order to impose discipline on the lawless anarchy of the postwar period, but then the individuals who had invented this lie had quit the stage, and their successors believed it and genuinely thought that Hontia was simply itching to get its hands on our wealth. And if you bore in mind that Hontia was a former province of the old empire that had declared independence in difficult times, then that added colonial ideas into the mix: bring the bastards back into the fold, after punishing them in exemplary fashion first…
And finally, the cause could be a matter of internal politics. The Department of Public Health and the military had been at each others’ throats for many years now. It was a question of which one would gobble up the other. The Department of Public Health was a hideously ravenous, insatiable organization, but if these military operations were even marginally successful, the generals would bring this organization to heel. Of course, if the war failed to produce a result that was even slightly worthwhile, it would be the gentlemen generals who were brought to heel, and therefore the possibility could not be excluded that this entire undertaking was a cunning act of provocation by the Department of Public Health. And by the way, it looked as if this was actually the case—judging from the disarray that was apparent everywhere, and also from what we had been yelling out loud to the entire world for a week already, when it turned out that the military action had actually not even started yet. And maybe, massaraksh, it wouldn’t start at all…
When Zef reached this point, the couplers clattered and clanged and the car shuddered. They heard shouts, whistles, and tramping feet outside, and the train carrying the penal tank brigade set off. The criminal convicts broke into thunderous song: “Once again there’s no chow and no vodka for us…”
“OK,” said Maxim. “What you say sounds perfectly plausible. But then how do you see the war developing, if it does start after all? What will happen then?”
Zef aggressively growled that he was no general, and then plunged straight into telling Maxim how he saw the whole business. Apparently, during the brief respite between the end of the world war and the beginning of their civil war, the Hontians had managed to fence themselves off from their former overlords with a strong cordon of atomic minefields. And in addition, the Hontians undoubtedly also possessed atomic artillery, and their politicians had had enough wits not to make use of all this abundant wealth in the civil war but to save it for us. Which meant that the invasion could be envisaged as proceeding approximately as follows: The spearhead would be three or four penal tank brigades lined up in the Steel Staging Area, with an army corps propping them up from the rear. Following up behind the army men, they would send in blocking detachments of guardsmen in heavy tanks, equipped with mobile radiation emitters. The degenerates, like Zef, would all go rushing forward to escape from the radiation blasts, the criminals and army men would go rushing forward in a fit of induced elation and enthusiasm, and any deviations from this norm, which were bound to arise, would be obliterated by fire from the Guards bastards. If the Hontians were no fools, they would open fire on the blocking detachments with their long-range guns, but it had to be assumed that they were fools, and therefore it had to be assumed that they would engage in mutual extermination—in this mayhem the League would turn against the Union, and the Union would sink its teeth into the backside of the League.